


Glain's Saturday

by blessedharlot



Series: Glain: A Week in the Life [6]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Ace Aro Glain Wathen, Body Euphoria, Canon Asexual Character, Competition, Fluff, Gen, Glain Has Hobbies, No Romance, No Sex, Post-Series, Running, Swimming, day in the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22640230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: It's race day!! Glain has been training, as has someone else.
Relationships: Jess Brightwell & Glain Wathen
Series: Glain: A Week in the Life [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608322
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Glain's Saturday

Glain felt the buzz of adrenaline coursing in every vein. She let the growing power coil up at her core and in the long muscles of her legs, and she narrowed her attention to the task in front of her. 

It was a perfect day for the race. The sun was soft today, gently warming the track under her bare feet. There would be just enough breeze to lift the sweat off her skin, once she got going, but it wasn’t cool enough to have penetrated the deep warm water she’d plunge into partway through the competition.

Five lengths of running a route through the heart of Alexandria. Then, ten lengths of swimming through Lake Mariout. Ten more lengths of running to bring them back where they’d started. Glain had trained hard for it. More than that, she had her orders. Glain thought back fondly over drinks with Nic during the first week of her training, when he had  _ ordered  _ her to win the competition. She would not defy such a command, unofficial as it may be.

Jess was somewhere in the crowd to her left, as close to the start line as she was. Earlier, they’d exchanged nods and smug smiles, and some friendly barbs Glain had already forgotten. But they each had their race to run, for different reasons. Jess was wherever Jess was in his long recovery from his slow-drowning in poison last year. Glain wasn’t sure how he was today, and she didn’t want to know. Out here, they weren’t friends. Too many bragging rights at stake.

Glain took this very seriously. And though she’d doubted it until this very day, it seemed Jess did too. The ease in his stretching suggested he’d actually trained for this, not just joined on a lark.

_ Good _ , she thought.  _ It will do him good to lose this badly. _

Glain wondered why she wasn’t opening her mouth to throw that last thought at him. But then he quietly coughed, possibly without realizing he was doing it. Glain decided to keep her silence. He’d have enough of a blow to manage when she won.

“Athletes!” A booming voice called out. “Be alert! One minute now!”

Glain began deep, supported diaphramatic breathing, as did several other behind her. As did Jess. She felt the fuel pulse through every part of her. Best to oxygenate and give oneself a burst ahead before settling into a more sustainable rhythm. This wasn’t the longest race around, but it required its own kinds of endurance.

Glain bent her knees, one foot behind, brought her elbows in, and waited. When the automaton clapped the tinny start signal, she pushed off on her back foot and darted quickly through the few people in front of her. Most competitors would start with a sprint like hers. Not everyone had her speed though. Soon enough, she had open air, in front of most of the pack. Glain marked who was around her, though it made little difference now. Three civilians were close on her right, all with graying hair and clear muscle memory coursing through their confident movements. Lifelong athletes, obviously. Near them were her friends Alice and Troll, looking solid, and several others beyond them. To her left, and behind her, were a few other civilians. In front of them, even with Glain, was Jess. She kept him in her peripheral vision.

Here, on this track, Glain practiced a different kind of focus than her norm. She didn’t watch the field, she didn’t compete against anyone else. Not even Jess, for the most part. Glain sank everything she had inward. All around her, legs pumped. Lungs worked. Arms shimmied just a bit at each flank, and she let that mass of heat and force push her out of her head and into her body. Pure force. Pure muscle. Pure will to push, push. The wind she heard was her own strong pull of air, the pristine power she drew in like steam thrusting an engine forward. If Glain listened carefully enough, she could hear the energy pulsing through her own levers, her own machine. Foot to earth, foot to earth, over and over, fast as the draw of a pistol.

There was no one else around now, but her body thrusting itself against the earth, speeding down the path. 

Okay, maybe there was one other person.

Glain recognized his smell, and the sounds he made as he moved… the rippling skip of his clothes on his speeding limbs. The gait of his feet striking the ground. And more than that, the engine hum of his breath, in and out. Glain doubted anyone else could tell it was still harsher than its old norm. Could Troll have heard the difference? Glain wasn’t sure.

_ You realize he’s still compromised _ , a little voice in her head said.  _ Should you win? Would it even matter if you do? _ Glain ignored the voices and noticed instead that Jess was several strides ahead of her. 

_ Well, that won’t do _ , she thought loudly to herself.

She pushed a bit more… nothing all out yet. She should save that for the last leg. But she had some reserve she could still pour into leg one. Wouldn’t do to let him too far ahead.

Her breaths powered her relentlessly, inevitably forward. This had to be won. It was her job. It was her order. Like any other order, there was no doubt she’d follow it. Win. It was undeniable. 

The pulsing crowd sped by them, and the larger trees behind the crowds waved as the race passed them by. But Jess seemed to feel where Glain was without looking over his shoulder, seemed to match his gains to hers, and his annoying flop of hair stayed resolutely as far ahead of her as it was.

Glain wouldn’t indulge that bristle inside her for one instant.  _ Put it into the run _ , she thought. She deemed her current pace sufficient, so she sustained it.

The last curve of the first run appeared in front of them, and Glain knew the water would be right around the corner. She eased off just a hair on her pace, coming down to something nearly restful as compared to her first sprint off the line. She leaned into the run, letting the last of the earth beneath her support her controlled lateral flight just above it. 

She sailed through that curve. 

Then, with the last of the crowd cheering the first lake-side athletes, Glain threw off her overshirt as she ran and pushed her feet against the first planks of the diving pier. She marked the hollow thunk of the wood as multiple feet reached it, though she deliberately ignored Jess’ close presence. She scanned the edge of the pier, deciding where she’d lay her feet. And when she got there - easy as a bird on wing - one last brief exchange between the wood and her leg coiled her energy reserve like a spring. Her arms arced above her head without any conscious thought other than the grand spinning blue of the water below.

She pushed off and sliced through the blue as though she lived there.

When her dive momentum slowed, arms and legs flung into precise and rapid moves. Glain loved swimming. She loved it. Even more than running, even more than boxing. Swimming was flying. It was magic beyond sweat, beyond alchemy, and always had been.

If she was in an altered state of concentration on the running path, she was absolutely gone elsewhere in the water… so far into her flesh that her flesh and the water were one. She only had to shift through her own swells of seawater muscle and deposit herself on the other side. As simple as turning in place.

She wouldn’t waver from her form, so breaths were now rigidly scheduled into her cycle of motion. Pump, pump, breathe, hold the breath. Pump, pump, breathe, hold the breath. Glain knew how she was quickest, so that was her stroke. Checking for competitors’ splashes would only slow her down. There were no decisions to make here anyway. This was the most straightforward part. Pump, pump, breathe, hold the breath.

The other side of the lake route was a shore instead of a pier, and she felt the still depth of the water underneath her shift into wave action as she approached. Glain swam in as far as she could, then finally pressed her feet into the sandy shore beneath her. As her toes hit the hard, wave-strewn shells, she realized the new sound in her ear was a crowd roar. There were more people here, busily cheering athletes as they left the water. 

Cheering… Glain. 

Before she entirely processed the patterns in her peripheral vision, she gave herself one fast spin to look around.

No other competitors were there. She was the first out of the water.

At that, Glain spun and bolted up the shore, the crowds around her now raucous at the spectacle of her own realization. Harsh grit gave way under every one of her footfalls… but the sooner she made it to the track again, the better off she’d be.

Here in the open air, she could just catch the susurrus of soft waves behind her, but no slosh of any competitors following her off the beach. She reached the paved track and there were no water trails. She was the first to arrive here.

_ Where’s Jess? _ A lurch of deep alarm wrenched itself out of her gut.  _ Is he okay? Was he prepared for the water? Does he even swim?? _ Glain fought against every screaming instinct and kept pounding herself along her path.  _ This isn’t a battle. There’s support staff everywhere. Jess isn’t my responsibility today. _

_ Follow your orders, Wathen. Win. _

The lengths sped by, the crowds a blur. But Glain wasn’t out there, she was inward again, in her own gait, now ever so slightly straining. Her own breath, still strong and sure, began to burn. 

_ Don’t drain the reserve, Glain, not yet. Not there yet. _ Glain had mostly lost track of time but she thought she’d just gotten out of the water.  _ Just pump. This pace, just keep it up. _

She didn’t know where anyone else was, she didn’t look behind her. She could hardly feel the earth beneath her now. She didn’t notice any wind… nor any air around her, for that matter. Not anymore. Glain had only ever found this particular tunnel vision on the battlefield before. But with no bone-wrenching work to do, she floated inside herself, riding her own rhythms of arcing and landing, expanding and contracting, driving the engine forward. Inevitably. Assuredly.

Suddenly, her inner compass clicked. She was in the last curve before the long straightaway that would deposit them all at the finish tape, now pulled across the line where they started. The same crowd awaited at the finish line, but Glain wouldn’t think about that yet. First was the last stretch.

And like the crash of a ballistae, Glain was back outside herself and the world roared. The crowds this far down were thunderous, and thrilled to see her as she pulled out of the curve.

She finished her turn, and straightened out. Then Glain reached down and poured absolutely everything she had into pumping her legs underneath her.

As she blew down the track, she didn’t think the crowds could get any louder. But then they did, booming and quaking on either side of her when Glain was at a seemingly random point in the long last stretch.

_ They see someone, _ Glain thought.  _ Someone’s gaining on me. _

Glain scanned for a way to know how far back they were - or who they were - without slowing her own momentum. But it was an impossible feat. She could only imagine. She could only presume it was Jess, and who knows who else just behind.

It was a real race now -- it was possible that somebody could overtake her. That Jess, of all people, could overtake her. There was plenty of room enough for her to lose her lead.

And with that, every neuron fired. Every muscle churned faster than it had. Her pace seemed to double. Every cell in Glain’s body existed to get her across that finish line. She gave up thought of having anything left on the other side, and poured herself into flying down the track.

She heard it then. Even above the crowds, she heard the crunch of other feet pounding the path. Worse yet, she heard his breathing… just loud enough to terrify her, but clearly not loud enough to slow him down enough. Jess wasn’t holding a damn thing back either. He must be on her flank. 

She needed to prepare for sabotage. Glain wasn’t even pouring energy into keeping a solid center of gravity; she’d committed every bit of effort she had to powering herself down the track. An unscrupulous competitor could probably knock her over with a feather.

But she didn’t change a thing about her energy outlay. Either because she couldn’t be bothered, or because it was Jess. She assumed a fair fight, a rare stand for her to take. But it kept him just a hair behind her.

The finish line finally came into Glain’s focus, and she allowed herself a glimpse of them, standing comfortably distanced from the pressing crowds in a cordoned off space near the finish line. Khalila and Dario, Thomas and Wolfe. And Nic. She could see his gleeful smile and nod already.

But she hadn’t completed the order, yet. She wasn’t at the finish line, and Jess loomed close now, very close. Possibly even with her. Possibly a hair ahead. Glain hoped the judge at the finish line was awake, because they might be needed.

The distance was short enough now that Glain dropped breathing down her priority list. And with a speed she’d rarely achieved, she somehow thrust herself a tiny measure of distance ahead of the shadow of Jess in her darkened peripheral. With that, nothing else existed but the finish tape. Nothing else at all. She flew, and kept flying, and that tape was the only thing that mattered.

And as Glain felt the tape brush her chest, a rush of golden light fill her vision. She lifted up her chest to fill it immediately with air, and let her limbs unravel from their patterns, probably rather gracelessly.

She spun around to find her friends behind her at the finish. To find Jess, who was in fact immediately at her left heel, wheezing harder than she was.

She flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his absurdly heaving chest.

“Did you drown?” she asked as she pulled away to give them more room to breathe.

Jess’ head and one hand waggled, in an exhausted approximation of a dismissive shake. “Only briefly,” he said.

Glain kept all her barbs to herself, and just shook her head at him. She kept her hand on his shoulder though, and watched as a giant, genuine grin crossed his face. He pointed past her to the thing he was looking at -- the giant board now being used to report their times.

In the winner’s slot, someone was currently writing Glain’s name.

Before Glain could turn back around, Jess had his arms around her again.

“Congratulations, Glain,” he said. “You bloody well earned it.”

Glain couldn’t bring herself to move, and their friends were politely giving them a moment to recover before they rushed them… though Glain could already hear Nic hollering something about a new record.

Glain decided to follow their lead. And so she stood there a moment, breathing, and enjoying the hard-earned wobble in her legs while she and Jess supported each other. She gave him two friendly pats on his cheek, and he winked at her. His breathing already sounded better than it had. He was training responsibly, then. It would just take more time. Recovery usually did.

Next race, she’d have to be faster to beat him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Glain takes a day off to rest!


End file.
